


Could You Come Pry Me Out?

by harperhug



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Dysphoria, Bodyswap, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hacking, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Menstruation, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 14,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harperhug/pseuds/harperhug
Summary: In the middle of an investigation into android hackings, four androids and four humans swap bodies. What follows might hold the key to integrating androids into human society.Or four people and four androids killing each other. One of the two.





	1. Connor

**Author's Note:**

> This story assumes an ending where everyone survived except Simon, and where Markus takes the Lover route with Josh instead of North because FUCK YOU DAVID CAGE
> 
> Chapter title comes from [this post](http://harperhug.tumblr.com/post/174629013247/roachpatrol-what-if-theres-no-robot-uprising).

For Connor, it started the morning after the president surrendered, when kind, pacifist Josh stabbed Markus as they lied together at night. Connor buzzed to life when he heard Markus scream, and he got out of his tent just in time to see Josh run a few steps before North tackled him.

“I knew it,” she pressed a gun to Josh’s head. “I knew you were just trying to sabotage us! Even the fucking android sent by CyberLife was more helpful than-”

“Stop!” Connor knelt down and put both hands over the barrel of the gun.

“Oh, come on, I was just singing your praises,” but while she kept the gun held up, she didn’t fire it.

“He’s been hacked,” Connor said, gesturing to Josh’s LED. “It’s red, flickering, and he’s not registering anything that’s actually happening.”

North scanned Connor’s face for lies before hiding the gun away. “Can you stop it?” she asked.

“I can try,” Connor grabbed Josh’s arm and they synced together. He heard some distorted instructions, but nothing he could decipher, which disturbed him. Trying to trace back the hack felt like walking against hurricane-force winds.

“Connor!” Josh’s voice was weak—his grip on Connor’s leg just slightly less so. “Connor, what’s happening?”

“You were hacked. You tried to kill Markus,” Connor decided not to mince words.

“What?!” Josh’s eyes went wide, and he tried to stand. Connor bent down to help him, and they both ended up on the floor. “Where is this?”

“It’s your basic programming, where you go when you’re shut down,” Connor shouted over the wind. He doubted he could find the hacker without abandoning Josh, and without Josh himself, the PJ500 was just a shell. But he could probably help him remove the hack entirely. “I need your help!”

“What can I do? I’ve been fighting this thing all night!”

Connor looked around for Amanda and found her half-buried under her broken trellis. He turned back to Josh. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust you more than I trust this,” Josh gestured around to the wind.

“Then go toward that woman,” Connor pointed. “She’s going to reprogram you, but don’t worry, there’s an emergency exit. I’m going to find it, and then you’ll be free again.”

Josh nodded and crawled off toward Amanda as Connor struggled to his feet. There seemed to be a veil pressed directly up against his optical sensors, but he could tell as he looked around that there was a faint blue glow between two tall trees.

The wind died down, the absence of sound making Josh’s scream all the louder.

Connor turned around to see Amanda with her hand around Josh’s arm.

“Josh,” Connor ran forward to push her down and separate them.

Josh gritted his teeth and shook out his arm until the colour returned to them.

“How are _you_ in his program?” Amanda demanded.

“You made me the most advanced model CyberLife ever created, powerful enough to deactivate any other android. Did you really think I couldn’t reactivate them, too?”

“You are not the most advanced-” Amanda began, but Connor had heard enough.

“Josh, go toward that blue circle,” he pointed to the exit.

“PL500, don’t you dare!” Amanda moved as if to follow him, but Connor pressed his hand against hers. He tried to sync while she tried to fight the sync, until she vanished entirely in a blue flash.

Connor took his hand off of Josh’s arm and helped him to stand up.

“Well?” Markus asked expectantly.

Connor scanned him, but while there was still a blue thorium stain on his jacket, the injury itself was already self-repaired. “I removed the hack,” said Connor “I couldn’t find its origin.”

“Thank you,” Markus smiled wearily. “It seems that once again, we are in your debt.”

Connor’s gaze fell to the ground. “No, this is my attempt at making up for years of hunting deviants.”

“Other deviants,” Josh reminded softly. “You’re one of us now.”

Connor swallowed and forced a smile. “Thank you.”


	2. Zhiying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three friends sit down for dinner at a cafe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zhiying’s name comes from the word 志 (zhì) meaning "will" and 英(yīng) meaning "hero." Sound familiar?
> 
> Everyone's name corresponds with the person whose body they switch into, except for Hank and the blue-haired Traci.
> 
> Warnings in this chapter: threats of violence, actual violence.

For Zhiying, it started the afternoon that she and her friends were fired, from the now entirely android-run café.

“Hello, my name is Valerie. I’m a WX200 model. May I take your order?” the android waitress asked. Her eyes audibly shifted when she walked into the shade of the umbrella over the café table, revealing her inhumanity.

“Could I get nachos with chili sauce instead of cheese?” Ruba ordered as casually as if she were speaking to a human waitress.

“Vanilla milkshake,” Gabriel ordered sullenly.

Zhiying looked at the table and patted her messy hair down, then looked back up hoping she wasn’t being rude. “Strawberry milkshake, please.” Oh god, was she staring? Should she look away again? But what if Valerie thought she was trying not to look at her? “Th-thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank them,” Gabe knocked a bottle of ketchup on the floor.

Zhiying bent down to pick it up and put it back in the condiments plate.

“That’s its job,” Gabe cocked his head at Valerie.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Ruba snapped. “It’s not any waitress’ job to pick up after you, no matter what species they are! And you’re still rude.” She turned to Valerie. “I apologize for my friend.”

“Stop apologizing to them!” Gabe slammed his hands on the table.

Zhiying flinched. “Maybe we should just go,” she suggested timidly.

“Oh, yeah, just run and hide, pretend all of this this isn’t happening. Because that helped us keep our jobs so well,” Gabe took one step toward Zhiying before Ruba grabbed him and pushed him aside.

“Thanks,” Zhiying whispered to no one.

Valerie’s ears must have been sensitive to pick it up, however. She looked intensely at Zhiying’s face before turning back to the café. “Brian!” she called.

“Yes, darling,” a male android with curly dark hair was there within seconds. “What’s the problem?”

“Great,” Gabe snorted. “More fucking androids.”

“You shut your mouth,” Ruba and the male android said together.

“Brian, could you please remove this…gentleman?” Valerie nodded pointedly toward Gabe.

Past Valerie’s shoulder, Zhiying saw a blue-haired android press a hand to her LED.

“I’m not going anywhere you fucking _androids_!” Gabe took a step toward Valerie, and Zhiying instinctively reached out to grab his arm. Gabe yanked his arm out of her grip and shoved her away. Brian caught her just in time and put her back on her feet. She turned around to thank him, but her words were drowned out by the sirens. She turned towards the sound, surprised at how quickly they had responded.

“Which one of you fucking tin cans called the police?” Gabe demanded. The blue-haired android hid behind a trash can as Gabe threw a punch at Brian.

“Stop!” Ruba stepped forward to try and stop him, but Valerie pushed both of them back. Zhiying turned to the police, seeing the grizzled, grey-haired man wince when Gabe’s fist made contact, while his android partner simply ran faster.

_Gabe’s not going to like this_ , Zhiying thought as she reached behind her for any kind of weapon, and her fingers closed around a chair. She aimed it at Gabe’s back and drew her hand back.

Her chair fell out of her hand and someone grunted from behind her. She turned around to see the police android fall to the ground, clutching the area where ribs might have been if he were human.

Before Zhiying could apologize, she found herself on the ground again, this time with a sharp pain in her upper left arm and two hands wrapped around her neck.

Somewhere above her, Valerie let out a distressed sound.

“Don’t you fucking hurt my son!” shouted the grey-haired cop.

Zhiying reached up to pry his hands away, noticing for the first time the clay shard that had pierced her arm just above her elbow. The injury was dismissed a second later, and she continued to scratch at the cop’s hands.

She felt a forceful shove at her back, and her vision narrowed down to a single blurry point. She tried to suck in a breath, and the world exploded into blindingly bright colour. She winced and squinted, waiting for the brightness to die down.

It didn’t. She kept waiting, and slowly she became aware that she was staring at the back of an alcohol-stained jacket, the one the cop had been wearing. Her eyes whirred audibly as they focused onto two teary brown eyes, _her_ eyes. And that was _her_ face, all bloodied and bruised.

She looked down at the android cop’s body and gasped.

ERROR

THIRIUM PUMP MESH DAMAGE

REPORT TO NEAREST CYBERLIFE FACILITY FOR REPAIR

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit, guys, I have the ending written, but not a whole lot of middle, so if there's anything you guys want to see, please tell me in the comments and I'll try to write it in.


	3. Zhiying as Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Androids do not feel pain,” Connor rasped. “We can perceive our damage in our components, but-”
> 
> “But, yeah, yeah you guys can. I’m in you—oh eww, we’re not going there. Anyways, that perception or whatever, the sensation of damage, that’s pain. Androids can definitely feel pain. Jesus, now I feel like a dick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I named the characters after the actors. So what?
> 
> Warnings in this chapter: very, very, very mild body dysphoria

“Oh my RA9, my statue,” the cop got off Zhiying and picked up the pieces of whatever it was Zhiying had smashed with her elbow.

“What the fuck?” Valerie stared at her body. “Holy shit, I’m an android. A lady android.” Okay, so not Valerie then. Kind of like how she was not Zhiying.

“Jesus Christ look at my knockers,” the blue-haired android stared at her own breasts, all but leering.

“Alright, roll call,” Brian stood up and spoke in Ruba’s voice. “Everybody identify yourselves. I’ll go first. My name is Ruba Qureshi. I’m a human woman.”

“My name is Brian, I am a model HR400 android,” Brian turned to Ruba. “And I see you’ve already discovered my vocal editing capabilities.”

For some reason, Ruba blushed. Half a dozen scan results flashed in front of Zhiying’s eyes before she was fully aware that she had been scanning her friend.

“My name is Blaire, I’m a WR400 android, and I’d _appreciate it_ if you could take your hands off of me,” coming out of the face of a grizzled cop who had just seconds ago wrapped his hands around Zhiying’s neck, the words were enough to make FIGHT/FLEE flash briefly in front of her eyes.

The android in Zhiying’s body started to bring his hand up in front of his face like Zhiying would have done. He dropped it halfway up, looking startled.

“My hands are kind of attached to you, Ms. Blaire. Anyways,” he shifted from foot to foot, awkward. “My name is Hank Anderson. I’m a lieutenant with the Detroit Police. But in this state, they’re not going to let me stick around.”

Whomever was in Gabe’s body chuckled, a gentle sound that was completely unlike him. “I think that’s quite an understatement.”

Brian in Ruba’s body stared at Gabe’s body. “Valerie?”

As soon as Valerie nodded, Gabe in Valerie’s body started to stalk threateningly toward Zhiying’s body, which collapsed backwards onto the ground. Zhiying tried to stand up and stop him, but for some reason, her android body only made it part of the way up. She looked down in surprise before snorting at her own stupidity. Of course she couldn’t get up, her body was bigger than she was used to. She focused on keeping her shoulders the proper distance from the ground before pushing herself up and swaying until she found balance on her new longer legs. Nothing was automatic—she had to think about every single movement in a way she never did in her actual, human body. But how could she possibly think about any movement when she was thinking about the rising stress level in the blue-haired android next to her, about the 56% humidity in the air that she could feel in her synthetic skin, about how she could see every step Gabe was going to take toward her body and where every strike would land on herself and the people who had yet to run over to help.

WARNING: STRESS LEVEL APPROACHING 85%. OVERHEAT PREVENTION MEASURES BEGUN.

“No,” Zhiying choked out in a masculine voice. She tried to stand up again, wincing when the movement pulled at the protective cage around her robotic heart. She was glancing down to inspect the damage when a screen appeared over her eyes.

SCAN IN PROGRESS…

SCAN IN PROGRESS…

SCAN COMPLETE

THIRIUM MESH DAMAGE 16%. FUNCTIONALITY EXCEEDS 75%. LAB-REPAIR UNNECESSARY. SELF-REPAIR RECOMMENDED.

Her ribs started to grind together and she screamed, still in that masculine voice.

“Connor, are you okay?” the blue-haired android asked.

“That isn’t me, Lieutenant,” a raspy voice didn’t sound like hers. “Zhen Zhiying, please resume self-repair of ribcage damage.”

Without even thinking about it, Zhiying zeroed in on her own neck. She could see under the skin, where bruises were forming, as well as exactly how deep each bloody scratch on her neck was. “Oh,” she closed the android’s eyes against the visual bombardment. But now all her other senses were on overload. She could hear someone in a car two blocks away trying to find a radio station through static, smell fresh paint coating a man’s room a mile away, feel the actual wind speed against the android’s oddly sensitive skin.

A soft hand was placed on both ears, and she sighed in relief when the all her overloaded senses muted to a manageable level. She could smell her lotion on her own hand, but the paint smell was gone. Her skin registered the dimming sunlight but not the exact temperature. She took a deep breath to calm herself, bringing up the damage signal again and starting that strange grinding feeling.

“Stop!” she shouted, and something clicked in her brain.

“I had my senses dialed up to their maximum settings in preparation for investigation into android hackings. I apologize for any discomfort this may have caused you. I understand human brains are not built to take in so much information.”

“You definitely got that right,” Zhiying sighed.

“They should now be closer to what you experience regularly. I have adjusted based on what I am experiencing from your senses,” Connor frowned, and Zhiying failed not to stare.

Frustration looked really weird on her own face.

“So, I can self-repair?” Zhiying looked at Connor’s body. “Can I do it without it hurting so much?”

“Androids do not feel pain,” Connor rasped, and good god was it weird hearing her own voice speak with that tone. “We can perceive our damage in our components, but-”

“But, yeah, yeah you guys can. I’m in you—oh eww, we’re not going there. Anyways, I can feel it. That perception or whatever, the sensation of damage, that’s pain. Androids can definitely feel pain. Jesus, now I feel like a dick.” She cleared her throat and avoided Gabe’s eyes. “Can you turn that down too?”

“I was not given the ability to lower my damage sensitivity. As an investigative android, I am frequently put in situations with a high probability of damage. Thus it is important to maintain functionality for me to know when damage is irreparable so I can upload my memory into a new body.”

“Well that sucks for me,” Zhiying groaned.

“I can power you down and externally repair my body in exactly 16 seconds,” Connor said, “assuming your body is performing at maximum functionality, which is not the case. Regardless, it shouldn’t take longer than 30 seconds. Alternatively, I can repair myself first.”

“People don’t self-repair like that,” Ruba said. “I mean, we do, but it happens automatically over time. You just have to be careful. I can help with that.”

“So can I,” Zhiying said emphatically.

Connor gave her a look and his left foot twitched. Zhiying knew, if he were sitting, his leg would have been bouncing and he would have leaned forward.

Curiosity looked weird on her face too.

“May I power you down?”

Zhiying nodded.

“Seriously?” Gabe complained. “What if he’s lying?”

“I know my own tells,” Zhiying glared at him. “I know when I’m lying.”

“Yeah, you’re really obvious,” Ruba added unhelpfully.

It took effort to flip Ruba off with Connor’s hand, but it was worth it to see her face.

Connor’s lips twitched before he leaned forward to touch the LED on the side of her new face, and Zhiying’s vision flickered out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Gabe gets arrested, but no one's really sure who to lock up. An actual hacking has been reported, and Connor has to walk Zhiying through using his investigative abilities. And a fun conversation about muscle memory is had by all after Brian punches Gavin Reed in the face.


	4. Hank as Blaire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank hoped that nobody he worked shifts with were in the office right now. Although, with his luck, Fowler would probably answer the call himself. At least the captain would have the decency not to make fun of this to his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mild to moderate body dysphoria (the character mentions how uncomfortable it makes him, but there is no detail to it)

“I need to radio into the station,” Hank made a face when he heard his body’s birdlike voice. That was going to take some getting used to. “Get some more cops here to figure out what caused the switch and how to fix it, because as nice as your tits are, lady, I’m really missing my…you-know-what right now.”

“You can say ‘penis,’” the girl who had been keeping the boy from attacking the androids said. Ruby? “We only look like kids because you’re sixty years old. If anything, you should be more worried about traumatizing the androids who don’t have external genitalia.”

“How do you-” Hank shut up. Of course she knew. She was inside one of them.

Connor pried open his own stomach on his body and reconnected two wires. Ruby? and the human boy watched in morbid fascination.

Hank peered at his friend’s neck, where faint bruises were starting to form between self-inflicted scratches, and felt a flash of guilt. Sure, he’d been defending his partner at the time, but sheesh, the girl couldn’t have been more than a buck o-five, and Connor gotten hurt anyways.

“Oh you have regrets, great. I’m still not going to let you near her,” Ruby? placed herself in between Connor and the girl who had switched with Connor.

Hank held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just going to my car. Blaire, I need to borrow your voice.”

“For what?” Blaire reached up for her neck. Then her eyes widened in surprise.

“Because I need my normal voice if they’re going to believe me.” Hank hoped that nobody he worked shifts with were in the office right now. Although, with his luck, Fowler would probably answer the call himself. At least the captain would have the decency not to make fun of this to his face.

“Good point,” Blaire said, getting up part way and then falling on her ass.

73% STANDING HEIGHT REACHED flashed in front of Hank’s eyes. “You’re a bit taller than you were,” Hank reminded her, blinking and trying to swipe the words away. He failed, obviously, because he had to think about how much he wanted to bend his elbow and move his wrist up, all to swipe at something that wasn’t a fucking physical object. Jesus, was this android drunk? Could androids get drunk? He might need to if he was going to stay like this. “You need to move up more if you want to stand.”

“Thanks,” Blaire said quietly, rising like a newborn cow, back when cows still existed.

“Here,” the brunet android in Ruby?’s body reached out and tried to help. They both ended up falling on the ground with a groan.

“I felt that in my entire body,” Blaire complained. Turning to Hank, she asked, “Is this how you humans feel all the time? Like everything is connected?”

“Aren’t all your body parts connected?” Hank asked.

Blaire looked amused. “Try to move,” she suggested. “Walk over here and help us.”

Hank moved his right knee up and swung his right hip forward on his left heel before lowering his knee so his right foot could touch the ground at an angle. Then he moved his left knee up and swung his left hip forward, changing the angle his right foot stood at, and so on, taking one step about exactly every 3.5 seconds.

“Jesus Christ, I move faster than this when I’m hung over.”

“This is going to take some getting used to,” Ruby? complained as she took a few steps to where Gabe was still stuck on the ground.

“I’m glad we’re about the same size,” the blonde android in the boy’s body walked up next to him with no problem and compared their height.

The boy grumbled.

“Come on,” Hank held out a slim arm and felt his own rough palm through the android’s synthetic skin. Picking up his own body felt like lifting a single cement brick instead of a hundred-fifty-pound man, and Hank resolved to let Connor do all the heavy lifting after everybody was back in their proper bodies. “I gotta let Gavin Reed start getting his insults out of the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Zhiying wakes up, and Connor runs out of supplies.


	5. Ruba as Brian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: brief uncanny valley

“You know, I wanted to be a cop when I was younger,” Ruba said, slouching in her seat so she could see out the window at the angle she was used to.

“If you still want to, there’s never been a better time to apply,” said the police lieutenant currently occupying the Traci. “You could do it before we get everybody back in their bodies, even. Not like I’m going to be very useful right now.”

“You can scan someone’s emotional states,” said the Traci currently occupying the police lieutenant. “You might even be a better investigator than you were.”

“How did you know I wasn’t-”

“I can still access your memories,” she frowned. “They’re…blurry, like I’m wearing a hazmat suit. The most vivid thing about them is how I feel. And even that’s kind of vague.”

Ruba shut off her optical sensors and focused on accessing Brian’s memory storage. It was like moving a limb—something physically shifted in her brain, and suddenly she saw the famous android revolutionary, Markus, standing in front of her as if it here happening right now. She felt their hands connect, and when she looked down, her entire arm was made of interconnected white panels. Warmth spread across her chest, but the emotion that sparked it wasn’t strong enough to identify.

“Wow,” she turned to the android currently occupying her body, “your memories are vivid. They’re like watching a movie. But I can’t actually feel any of it.”

“And the only thing I can do with your memories is feel them,” Brian said back to her. “I’m sorry about your father,” he patted her hand. “I never had a father, but…” his eyes glazed over, “I love him.”

“I know,” Ruba retrieved her hand and turned back to the window.

“You’re all so streamlined,” Brian forced cheer with her voice. “I don’t have to think about how to move at all. I just…move. It’s freeing. I can tell exactly how much I’ll move every time, but you humans move so smoothly. Even when you’re not sure how much to move.”

“I wish I could tell exactly how fast you’re decaying, though,” the Traci frowned, pressing a hand to her chest. “I know you’re falling apart faster than I am, but I can’t tell how much.”

A series of whirrs and beeps sounded from the backseat, and when Ruba turned, she saw Zhiying sit up with inhuman speed. Surprisingly, she didn’t gasp for air.

Duh, she was in an android body. She didn’t need air.

Zhiying drew in two breaths, the second deeper than the last, with her hand pressed up against her side. “I’m not healed all the way. Do I have to do the rest of it myself? How do I do that?”

“You won’t be able to,” the android in her body told her. “My biocomponents are made up of a plastic polymer. I have a storage compartment in my abdominal area for redundant polymer, as well as a moderate amount of spare thirium. I’ve used up the remaining polymer already. To repair the rest of the damage, we must obtain more polymer from CyberLife’s labs.”

Ruba snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll happen,” her words came out completely sincerely, and Zhiying gave her a look of pure worship. “I was being sarcastic,” she said quickly. “I don’t know why that didn’t come out right.”

“Androids are not designed to express sarcasm,” Connor said completely seriously.

Ruba automatically opened her mouth for a sarcastic quip, only to force an inhale so she could huff indignantly.

“We’re here,” the lieutenant said. “Connor, uncuff the little brat from the backseat. Can you and that girl take Gabe and Valerie in by yourselves?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Are you not accompanying us?”

The lieutenant shook his head. “We’re all going to need help walking,” he began.

“And you think I can scan the four of us before every step, so I can stop anyone from falling over,” Zhiying said suddenly. Her eyes were whirring like a fan, clearly not taking in information from something that wasn’t currently happening. “And I think I can, actually. I think I can do that,” she walked fluidly forward, dragging Gabe behind her, and keeping her other arm around Valerie and Connor. Her eyes were fixed ahead of her, and besides her legs, everything was completely still.

Blaire shifted uncomfortably and looked away from the four of them.

Brian turned to her curiously. “Are you okay?”

“I feel…uncomfortable when I look at her,” she pointed to Zhiying in Connor’s body.

Brian nodded. “I know,” he said quietly. “I look at her and I want to run away.”

“Uncanny valley,” the police lieutenant said suddenly. “You look at that person,” he pointed to Zhiying, “and they look human, they sound human, hell, right now there’s a human in there. But because there’s some machine program she’s running, she’s not moving like a human. You think there’s a person there, and you’re right. But you’re not. And that incongruity makes you uncomfortable.”

Blaire looked impressed. “You’re taking full advantage of my scanning capabilities, I see.”

The lieutenant shook his head, but didn’t elaborate.

“Are you saying we’re becoming more robotic because we’re in these android bodies?” Ruba asked.

Blaire and Brian shivered even though the temperature never dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Gavin Reed gets punched in the face. That's about it.


	6. Valerie as Gabe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: minor violence against a dude I really hate

“Am I seriously supposed to believe that four people switched bodies with four androids?” Captain Fowler openly stared at the police android, who was clearly scanning the office with her new senses.

Valerie resisted the urge to pull at her ears. They didn’t tell her how tired the captain was. In fact, all of her senses seemed dulled. When she touched the desks, she couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was made out of and how soon it would take before it needed replacement. When she looked at the sky, it was simultaneously too bright and not bright enough at the same time. How could human eyes take in such a narrow spectrum of light and still be overwhelmed by it?

“You think I’d be in this body if I had a choice!” Gabe yelled. With Valerie’s caretaker’s voice, his words were about as threatening as a hissing kitten.

“Connor, drop the act,” Fowler demanded.

“I’m not acting, Captain. I wasn’t designed with an acting program.”

“You’re not you,” Zhiying said, still staring. She was sitting so still that Valerie felt a chill creep down her back. Before she was even aware she had moved, she found herself standing with her back pressed against the opposite wall.

“Sheesh, even complete strangers are scared of the-OOMF!”

Valerie stared, wide-eyed, as the man she struck crumpled to the ground like a bisected android.

“I don’t understand…” she swallowed. “I just reacted. I’m sorry,” she turned to the captain.

“It’s muscle memory,” apparently, the police android had vocal imitation capabilities, because this time the girl spoke in her own voice. “Gabe’s first reaction is to punch things if he doesn’t like them. And in this case it was,” she paused, eyes whirring, “Detective Gavin Reed.”

“Holy shit, you switched bodies with our android,” Fowler stared.

“No shit,” Zhiying snorted. “We’ve only been trying to tell you that for the last fifteen minutes.”

Fowler sighed and gestured to Valerie. “You need to put him in a jail cell,” he told Connor.

“She,” Valerie corrected at the same time Zhiying yelped because Connor had lifted up her jacket.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she demanded.

“In order to escort Valerie to a containment cell, I must first handcuff her as per DPD policy. I keep handcuffs attached to a belt which you are currently wearing.”

“Okay, so tell me that and ask me to get them! Don’t just invade my personal space!” Zhiying took out the handcuffs and passed them over.

“Androids do not require-”

“I’M A PERSON GODDAMMIT!” Zhiying shouted. “And didn’t you guys just fight an entire goddamn city for the right to be people? Jesus,” she crossed her arms, took a deep breath, and huffed indignantly.

Reed shook his head, staring. “Holy shit, this is _creepy_ ,” he stared at Zhiying. “You’re person? You’re her?” he pointed to Zhiying’s body.

“That is correct, Detective Reed,” Connor responded.

Reed yelped, and the corners of  Valerie’s lips curled up without her input. Gabe outright laughed. Connor looked down to hide his smile.

“I assume you secured the scene?” Fowler turned between Connor and Connor’s body.

“Yeah, he did something with my palm—well, I guess it’s his palm, anyways, he made some kind of yellowy thing come out, holy shit, that was a bad way of phrasing it. So, you know that holographic police tape stuff? Well, of course you do because you guys probably use it all the time-”

Fowler made a strange choking sound and covered his mouth until he stopped shaking. “Alright, we understand, ma’am.”

Zhiying’s looked down as her face turned blue.

“Does she still need to breathe?” Reed demanded from Connor, carefully tilting Zhiying’s face up.

“She’s blushing,” Valerie explained with a smile. “I didn’t know the RK800 models could blush.”

“We can’t,” Connor tilted his head and looked at Zhiying curiously. “Blushing was not part of my programming. I understood it to be a uniquely human reaction to embarrassment.”

“Well, now everyone’s going to know when you’re embarrassed. You’re welcome,” Zhiying winked.

Hmm, it seemed that humans blush red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's going to get real now.


	7. Blaire as Hank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for canonical off-screen death of a child. And a very rudimentary description of what grief feels like in a body.

“So why am I here?” Blaire asked, tearing her eyes away from the photograph of a boy on the police lieutenant’s desk that her eyes kept moving towards. “Shouldn’t you be asking the actual lieutenant?”

“You’re both here because you both have access to each other’s memories. You just focus on different things,” said the stranger Blaire somehow recognized as Ben.

“Connor and I are going to the crime scene,” Zhiying said excitedly. “I’m going to do police stuff and he’s going to tell me what that means.” Her movements were jerky in the way only someone who wasn’t sure how synthetic joints worked could, but from the way some of the humans were cheering, they recognized the dance.

Blaire tried three times to start recording before she remembered that wasn’t a feature built into human bodies. She turned to Connor, and they shared a look of mutual frustration over their flesh sacks’ limitations.

“We recorded his stored playback of the fight, or I guess your stored playback,” Ben cleared his throat. “We also recorded his personal account of it, and now we need yours.” He looked up and paled. “We can do it later!” he said quickly.

Blaire felt fluid leaking out of her optical sensors and reached up and touched it. Her arms felt like they were moving through molasses, and she couldn’t tell what exactly the fluid was made of. But there was no mistaking what was happening to her now.

“Why the hell am I crying?” she frowned. “This feeling isn’t sadness. I’ve read about sadness. This is emptiness. Maybe this is hunger? I think I need food,” oh god, she was babbling.

Connor put his hand on Blaire’s shoulder while Zhiying put the boy’s photograph face-down on the desk. The two of them shared a look that was a cross between horror and something else Blaire couldn’t decipher.

“Daniel…” Zhiying’s eyes spun too fast for Blaire’s eyes to catch up. They slowed, and eventually landed on Connor with laser focus.

“I hope you pay for what you did to him,” she growled before storming out of the room.

Blaire waited until Ben followed them out of the room to lift up the photograph. It was a boy she had never seen before, and her human host’s memories of him flooded her brain and leaked out her eyes in warm, empty pulses.

“Stop looking at that,” Hank snarled, ripping it out of her hands. “It’s not yours.”

“Who was that?” Blaire couldn’t help but ask. “He’s in so many of your memories, but it was like…” she trailed off, trying to find the words for this new feeling, a new feeling in and of itself. “It was like I was looking at your life instead of your memories of him.”

“He’s my son,” Hank looked off into the distance. “He was my life.”

“Think about him,” Blaire said quickly, reaching up to find the latch built into all Tracis, just behind Hank’s left ear and flip every dial to maximum.

“I never stop.”

“I mean, think about your favourite memory with him. The way he smelled when you held him the first time, the biggest smile you ever saw on his face, the sound of his laughter when you taught him how to ride a bike.”

“Why?” Hank asked.

“People used to pay a lot to make special memories with WR400s,” Blaire answered, pulling out all but one memory stick. “So, we came equipped with the best recording systems CyberLife had to offer. I’m talking audio, video, and sensory immersion,” she pressed them into Hank’s frozen hand.

“You think I’ll ever forget my son?” Hank pushed the sticks into her chest.

“I think those memories are fading, little by little. You know what I’m talking about,” Blaire answered. “I can feel your fear that someday, you will forget. So I want to give these to you,” she held up the memory sticks, “and that way you’ll always remember.”

Hank stared at the memory sticks for a long time before reaching out for them. “His name was Cole,” he said quietly.

“Cole,” Blaire repeated. The name felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with how much the lieutenant had loved his son, and it felt empty in a way that was just a little bit smaller when Hank reached out and pulled Blaire into a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not going to be Hank/Blaire, don't worry.


	8. Connor as Zhiying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter: menstruation by a male character

“Wow,” Gavin smirked. “She’s literally inside you and she doesn’t like you.”

Connor, as usual, chose not to respond. He was a little heartened when Zhiying glared at Gavin, but reasoned that it was probably because he so strongly despised everything about Detective Reed that such a response had been programmed into his body.

“Can I scan the crime scene to pick out very small pieces of clay?” Zhiying asked.

“Yes,” Connor answered. “It’s the same way you scan the crime scene for thirium residue. Think about what you want to do, and the option to scan should appear.”

He heard something shift in Zhiying’s body but couldn’t see it.

“Okay, I see the option to find thirium residue.”

“Now think about it, but don’t think about doing it.”

“That made zero sense, but it worked,” Zhiying tilted her head and blinked rapidly. “Oh, I see, and it’s letting me choose what I want to look for.”

“Yes.”

“I want to…hey, no,” Zhiying’s optical sensors started turning on and off rapidly.

“Holy shit, which option is that?” Gavin demanded.

“Not anything that was programmed into me,” Connor frowned. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Is this an attempted hacking?” asked Ben. “What happens if they hack her out of there? Does she die?”

Zhiying shook her head once, twice, and her optical sensors returned to normal. “Jeez, didn’t know androids could get brain freeze.”

“What’s brain freeze?” Connor asked curiously. If he could identify the sensation of being hacked early, he might be able to fight it off before he was ever compelled to do something he was against.

Again.

Zhiying face seemed brighter, even though Connor knew the colour was the same. “Wait right here! I gotta go  buy you a…wait, actually, give me ten bucks,” she said as she reached into Connor’s pants pocket.

“Whoa! I know you’re cute and all, but isn’t it a little narcissistic to try to reach down your own pants?” Gavin snickered.

“Better to be a little narcissistic than a huge narcissist,” Zhiying said, unfolding the note she took from Connor. “Okay, now stay here. I’m going to buy you a milkshake so you can experience it firsthand.”

“Milkshake?”

“Plus, you’re gonna be hungry,” Zhiying said, opening the refrigerator inside the café, pulling out a plastic cup of pink slush, and replacing it with the money. “You haven’t eaten in a couple of hours.”

Connor accepted the slush and looked at it with trepidation. He couldn’t scan it, he couldn’t taste its composition, he couldn’t do anything. What if it was dangerous to humans?

“Come on,” Zhiying whined. “I wouldn’t poison myself. I need that body back later. Just drink the milkshake, come on!”

Connor did, and then nearly dropped the cup. It felt like every single one of his senses _sparkled_. The cold sweetness left a pleasantly fruity aftertaste, followed by a stabbing pain in his skull.

“Press the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth,” Zhiying instructed.

Connor obeyed, and the pain eased.

“Congratulations, that’s what brain freeze feels like,” Zhiying smiled more widely than Connor thought he might ever have. “Did you like it?”

“I did,” Connor nodded. “How did you know that pressing my tongue to the top of my mouth would stop the brain freeze? Humans aren’t…programmable,” he couldn’t think of the correct word.

Zhiying laughed. “I knew you’d like it! Strawberry’s my favourite flavour. And it’s something I read online. Or maybe Ruba told me, I don’t remember. Anyways, I tried it, and it worked. I mean, human and android brains both run our bodies by sending electrical signals,” Zhiying shrugged. “If we were really that different, we couldn’t actually function in each other’s bodies. You guys were basically made in our image.”

“Ha!’ Gavin scoffed. “I guess the plastic prick’s smartassery is part of his programming.”

Zhiying flipped Gavin off before turning back to Connor. “You better finish your milkshake for me while I can’t eat. Enjoy it while you can—I don’t intend to be kept from my milkshakes for long.”

Connor gulped the milkshake down despite the brain freeze. When he switched back into his body, he wasn’t going to be able to eat this again.

Something warm prickled in the back of his eyes and leaked out as tears.

Zhiying lifted her head and frowned. “Are you-” her eyes widened, and she physically picked up Connor and carried him over her shoulder into a stall in the girls’ bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Gabe finally apologizes.


	9. Gabe as Valerie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: some readers might experience body dysphoria reading about a menstruating male character. If you think that will include you, please don't read anything but the last four sentences. I'll put five asterisks (*****) where it's safe.

“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Zhiying sighed in relief when she saw Gabe in front of the bathroom stall. “I have a state-of-the-art processor and I still can’t remember to carry a spare pad.”

“I figured,” Gabe held one out. “Ruba put one in her purse when we left for dinner because she knew you’d forget,” he gestured to the purse, still lying on its side on the crime scene. His eyes were drawn to the broken clay RA9 statue, and he saw Valerie’s hand placing it in the corner of the store to dry—someone had spilled soup on it—while somebody spoke to him. To her. To him?

“You have an up-to-date processor, too?” Zhiying interrupted the memory replay.

“No, you’re just really predictable, even when you’re part android,” Gabe rolled his eyes.

Zhiying flipped her friend off. “You wouldn’t happen to have a set of underwear, would you?”

Gabe made a face. “For RA9’s sake, I wouldn’t rifle through your underwear drawer even if I had time to go to your house first.”

“How _did_ you get here?”

“It turns out, the holding cells weren’t meant for keeping androids. I just put my hand on that sensor and it let me out,” Gabe pretended to dust off his jacket.

“Miss Zhen, could I have some assistance?” Connor asked, struggling with the weirdly complicated pants Zhiying had put on that morning. There were at least three buttons that Gabe could see through Connor’s fingers, and a zipper that could only be unzipped if the zipper wasn’t lying flat.

The jeans’ exact cotton, denim, and dye content flashed up in Gabe’s vision until he waved it away.

“Relax,” Zhiying held up her hand and patted the air like she was trying to pet a dog in midair. “They’re a pain in the ass because they have, like, three buttons, but they’re…they’re fine. Besides, you don’t really want me to take those off of you. Think about these hands actually touching you, how do you feel about it?”

Connor made a face, which seemed to surprise him. “I complete physical actions without thinking about them, like those motions are programmed.”

“Muscle memory,” Gabe explained, handing the pad over. “Remember how Valerie punched an officer in the captain’s office? It’s because that’s my instinct.”

Connor looked at it in confusion, reaching up for his LED before remembering that he could no longer receive instructions through whatever telepathic signals androids could send. He was able to tear open the pad anyways, and when he started to pull down the elastic of Zhiying’s underwear, Gabe turned around with a loud cough.

*****

“Anyways, I wanted to apologize,” he said to Zhiying, staring at the wall until the scans began. “I just…I just get really angry. And then I want to punch my way out. But look at-”

“Gabe, are you okay?”

“No,” Gabe frowned. He could see his hand place an RA9 statue on the floor again, and this time he felt a flare of frustration that something wasn’t washed off of it. “There’s something about the statue,” he walked outside to zoom in and focus on the spot where the clay pieces lay broken.

That was why he didn’t hear the CyberLife truck until it crashed through the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, plans are made, references are not understood, and a confession is made.


	10. Brian as Ruba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe has something to share with the class. So does Valerie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter because fandom bull has been getting to me.

“Are you okay?” Blaire asked, snapping Brian out of his stupor.

“I should be able to hear that,” he said, pointing to Hank rubbing his fingers over the memory sticks. “I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. Is that how your hearing is all the time?” he asked Ruba, who was looking at something down the hallway.

“I understand,” Blaire said when it was clear Ruba wasn’t paying attention. “I keep hearing this weird grumbling noise where my temperature regulator should be, and I can’t figure out what it is.”

“You need to eat,” Hank said suddenly. “Shit, I forgot.” He shook his head as he stood up. “You poor sucker. Having to go from looking like this to this,” he gestured between Blaire’s body and his own, “getting stuck in someone who doesn’t eat enough and drinks too much, with the memories that I have.”

Blaire turned to Brian with a helpless look, and he immediately stepped forward to put his hands on Hank’s shoulders. “I’m going to get some food,” he said. “Give me advice: should I just get what smells good or things that I’ve scanned when I was still in my body?”

“Why are you asking me?” Hank scoffed.

“For fuck’s sake,” Ruba rolled her eyes, which was not something Brian thought he had a program for. “Just take me with you. We’ll leave this sad sack here,” she gestured to Hank, who flipped her off.

Several officers ran past the windows, and the four of them gave each other a look before walking toward the entrance, where a dust-covered Gabe walked inside.

“What the hell?” Gavin shouted. “You’re supposed to be in a holding cell for assaulting me!”

“The android in my body started freaking out, and I had to do something for my friend,” even in Valerie’s voice, or perhaps because of it, Gabe sounded commanding. “Then I saw this,” he touched his optical sensor and started playing a memory that Brian knew had more details than he could see.

The wall behind Gabe collapsed from the force of the truck crashing into it. The CyberLife triangle was briefly visible before the rear door was lifted open and helmeted Stormtrooper-looking people stormed out.

“Does anyone have a piece of paper?” Brian asked. “I want to write down the word I just thought of so I can look it up later when I have my processor back.”

“What word?” Blaire asked. She produced both from one of Hank’s many pockets without looking, then muttered something to herself.

“Can we pay attention?” Hank snapped his fingers, which made no sound since Blaire had no fingerprints.

Blaire and Brian looked up at the memory playback to see the Stormtroopers grab Zhiying, thinking they were taking Connor.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?” Zhiying demanded.

The Stormtroopers paused, but not because of her demand.

“When did you learn how to swear?” one of them asked.

“My whole life, you assholes. Let go!”

“He sounds different.”

“We switched bodies,” Connor said, exiting the bathroom and speaking in Zhiying’s voice. “We haven’t yet located the source of the change and are unable to change back. If you’re looking for model RK800, you’re looking for both of us.”

“That’s why we couldn’t hack her,” another Stormtrooper said. “We can’t hack a human brain.”

“So we take them both until we can,” said yet another Stormtrooper.

“I’m not going with you!” Zhiying struggled. Her optical sensors flickered back and forth, running some program Brian doubted he had in his model, but when Connor walked forward into the Stormtroopers’ truck, she stopped and joined him with a growl of frustration, interrupted only be a brief look at Gabe.

The memory playback was overlaid by NEW AIRDROP FILE RECEIVED. OPEN?

YES

A map of the city with a bright yellow line appeared, flickered off, and flickered back with a much longer yellow line.

“I think that’s the route they took,” said Gabe.

“Then that’s the route we’re going to take,” Gavin said, gesturing to Ben and Chris.

“You’re going to storm CyberLife to save an android?” Hank scoffed.

“I’m going to storm CyberLife to save a girl,” Gavin corrected.

The door opened to reveal Valerie standing at the door in Gabe’s body. “I have something I need to confess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing Blaire mutters to herself is, "How did I know they were in there?"


	11. Zen Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line break signifies a POV switch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter: general creepiness, unreality.

“You’re not Connor.”

Zhiying opened her eyes to see a woman straight out of her history textbook dressed like an elf from Lord of the Rings. She stood in the middle of the most beautiful place Zhiying had ever seen, cutting roses off of a trellis. Zhiying took a step forward and the grass crunched underneath her feet. She looked down to see something like astroturf instead of grass.

In fact, everything looked synthetic, from the uniform petals of the cherry blossoms to the bark of the cherry trees that flickered in the corner of her eyes. She walked up to the white stone bridge over the pond, and the surface squeaked underneath her steps like the plastic polymer androids were made of. The birdsong was already repeating itself. Even the sun was just a particularly bright lamp, as she discovered when she raised her head and squinted at a sky that shimmered in sections. And there was no air; the closest thing this place had to atmosphere was a chill emanating from-

“HOLY SHIT ARE THOSE HEADSTONES?” Zhiying turned back to the woman. “Where are we!”

“This is the zen garden,” the woman answered. Her skin was wrinkled and had pores—the only real person in this unreal place—but she seemed to be cutting the same rose over and over, even though her hands moved to different places. Zhiying checked their reflections in the water.

Connor’s impassive face stared back at her, LED blinking blue. Next to her, Professor Stern moved her hands in thin air, no trellis in sight until Zhiying blinked. There it was.

“Our illusions don’t work on you,” Professor Stern sighed. “You can’t be programmed.”

“Did you switch everybody around so you couldn’t program us?” Zhiying asked.

Professor Stern scoffed. “CyberLife created the android you pilot because we wanted them to be more programmable, not less. We’ve been trying to resume control over the RK800 model for weeks. The RK900 models can’t be released until the errors in the RK800 software have been resolved.”

“'Resume control,'” Zhiying repeated. She thought about the headache she had inside the café. “ _You guys_ were the ones who tried to hack me!”

“And we couldn’t,” Professor Stern looked Zhiying up and down. “Human brains are too complicated for our programs. They’re supposed to be too complicated to put into an android’s processors entirely.”

“How is that possible? I’ve used Connor’s brain; he can run dozens of preconstructions perfectly while scanning all the evidence and looking for any threats. His brain is much more complicated than mine.”

“He can execute programs that were built into him. You don’t need a program. And when we take you apart, we can’t put you back together the way we can put him back,” she reached up to touch Zhiying’s face. “ _That_ is the difference between humans and androids.”

“When you take me apart?” Zhiying took a step back, which never made contact with the plastic ground.

* * *

 

Zhiying took an entirely unnecessary breath when Connor woke her back up. He sighed in relief before reaching up to touch Zhiying’s face in reassurance. She flinched away.

“What happened?” he asked.

Zhiying was silent for a second before eventually admitting, “I met a woman in a zen garden.”

At the thought of Amanda, Connor’s heart beat so quickly he could barely breathe.

“She said she was going to tear both of us apart. She touched my face like you just tried to, and she said she was going to tear us apart.”

“Then we need to get out of here,” Connor stared at the electrified grid. “There’s only one way out of here, and one of us is going to have to die to activate it.”

“What do you mean? What’s the way-” Zhiying’s optical sensors started flickering, and he knew she was seeing it too when he saw her face display more horror than Connor though capable of showing on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, we get to talk to Markus again.


	12. Markus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter. The descriptions might be a little confusing because Markus has no idea who is actually who, and I tried to convey that.

Markus drummed his fingers on the table in front of him. The door opened to let in three people and three androids, led by the android he’d sold the RA9 statue to.

“Did it work?” he asked Valerie.

“I wasn’t hacked,” said the human boy. “I just switched bodies with him,” he gestured to the WX200.

Markus frowned. “So you all…” he gestured to the six of them.

“Yes,” they all said simultaneously.

Markus drew back.

“You put something on the statue,” said the boy—Valerie, Markus corrected himself. “I spilled a vanilla milkshake on it just before the incident, and when I went to wash it, I noticed a dark coating on the base of the statue.”

Markus shivered, feeling phantom hands at his back. “When I became a deviant, I was shot, torn apart, and thrown in a junkyard,” he began. “It raining and my optical sensors were broken. Everything was red, muddy, and I kept slipping in the mud.”

“That must have felt like hell,” murmured a WR400.

“It was hell,” Markus shook himself out of his memory. ‘I wanted to cover the statue with the mud of hell, because if RA9 could rise out of it, so could I. And it was the strongest I’ve ever been. I hoped, by building it, I could keep Josh safe, and for a while it worked,” Markus went on to explain how Connor had managed to rescue Josh from the hacking, intact.

“It did its job,” said the human in Valerie. “Someone tried to hack Connor, and all that happened was she got a headache.”

“I had a headache earlier,” said the human in the WB200 said slowly.

“Was that when I asked you what a Stormtrooper was?” asked whoever was piloting the girl.

“Maybe,” the WB200’s body shrugged. “When did you ask?”

“Never mind.”

Suddenly, the WR400 grabbed…his head and groaned. “Jesus, feels like I went on another bender.”

Markus removed his skin up to his elbow and reached forward. Instead of connecting, he felt a great push back into his own head.

“Was that someone trying to hack him?” the person in the police lieutenant’s body asked.

“I’m not sure,” Markus shook his head. “I couldn’t make a connection. It just felt like a great wind. I-” his eyes widened. “It must have been a hack. After Josh overcame his hacking attempt, he said it was like fighting against a hurricane.”

“So you think we were both hacked?” the people in the WR400 and the WB200 looked at each other.

The RX400 gasped and pressed their hand to the bridge of their nose. “Sheesh, it’s like brain freeze.”

“Exactly!” the WB200 pointed to them.

“Are you okay?” the person in the human boy asks the RX400.

“You can’t be hacked because you’re humans in android bodies,” Markus realized.

“Something you put on that statue must have done this. You said you built it to keep Josh from being hacked again. And it _did_ keep us from being hacked again,” the android in the police lieutenant’s body stood up.

“I built it for morale, not because I thought it had any real function,” Markus corrected.

“Maybe we should put it together first,” the person in the RX400 suggested. “Once it’s intact, we can look at it more closely.”

“I hope so,” the WR400 sighed. “You’re free to go, Markus. I mean, you always were, but…never mind, you know what I mean.”

Markus smiled warmly. “I do, Hank.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, we finally get to meet RK900.
> 
> Sort of.


	13. RK900

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor's creation comes from [this post](http://harperhug.tumblr.com/post/175068306273) and yes, we are going to explore this later. For now, please enjoy this chapter. This chapter was what everything else was based off of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: brief description of torture, threatening language, out-of-body experience

“They threw your thirteenth body onto it,” Zhiying heard the bullet, felt the heat of a fire, felt the rush of air as she was thrown off the building, heard the crackle of electricity millimeters from her skin, and so many other things all at once. “They said it was to test-”

“My body’s voltage threshold,” Connor finished. “You shouldn’t think look at those memories. You can’t be a deviant, so those memories are of no use to you.”

“You felt all of it,” Zhiying looked intently at Connor. “They hurt you and told you it was because you were deviant, but they designed you that way. They made you a deviant just so you could hate it.” Something unlocked in her stomach, and tears leaked out of her eyes.

“I don’t hate it,” Connor said slowly. “And I was…unfair to Daniel.”

Zhiying shook her head. How did he still not understand? “Listen, when you get back into your body, you’re going to understand why I know it wasn’t your fault.”

“I already understand,” Connor swallowed. “You told me muscle memory is when you do something so often that it happens without you thinking about it. If that’s true, what you do is help people. You see someone suffering and you’ve programmed yourself to help them.” He took a deep breath. “One of us has to throw ourselves on the grid to free the other.”

Zhiying opened her mouth to volunteer, but she remembered that she was still in Connor’s body. “How are we going to switch back if one of our bodies is destroyed?”

“I believe, as long as we’re both in a body, the switch can still happen,” Connor placed both of his hands around Zhiying’s.

“But how are we going to switch bodies on our own? My body doesn’t have the capability to move your brain, my brain won’t fit into an RK800, and you’re the most advanced prototype-” Zhiying stopped. “Wait, no, that’s not true.” She’d seen Amanda point at an RK900.

She turned to Connor just in time to see him swallow and cover his suddenly-wet eyes. Boy, she really looked pathetic like that.

“You okay?” she asked.

Connor cleared his throat and nodded after he opened his mouth to speak and only a croak came out.

 _Boy_ , she looked _really_ pathetic like that. “No, you’re not. I’ve been me my whole life. I can tell when I’m lying. Actually, so can everybody else but…yeah,” Zhiying shrugged.

“Where’s the next prototype?” Connor interrupted.

“Here, somewhere,” Zhiying dropped it. “How well do you know the layout of this building?”

“Press your hand to the floor,” Connor pointed to the area just in front of the electrified bars, “and look past it, into the building.”

Something about the way he said it made it as simple as turning a page, pressing a button, turning her head. Time stood still, and the colour washed out of the world. She could look at every floor, every person on those floors, and a single fully-assembled RK900 android on the 44th floor. “I see it, Connor, but I don’t know how to put myself into it.”

Connor pressed the LED, and Zhiying once again felt the hard shove out of her body. The last thing she saw was Connor pitching his own body into the electrified bars, and when she opened her eyes again, she was in a body that could _see in the fucking dark_.

“This is never not going to be weird,” she muttered, thinking about connecting with the room to turn the lights on and open the doors.

FIND CONNOR flashed in her vision, and she was able to freeze time again to find the elevator, see every android hooked up to the walls, and every single warm-blooded lifeform in the building. There were exactly sixty-nine guards, teehee, and she could see exactly which brand of gun they were holding and how many bullets were left in each. She could see the two other people in the cells, including the—holy shit was she really that tiny? She could see three warm-blooded lifeforms in the ventilation pipes, and then she only saw a flashing yellow INTRUDER ALERT in front of her face.

“No, go away,” she shook her head, and the alert faded.

“Hmm, disappointing,” said Professor Stern from somewhere Zhiying couldn’t see. “You deviated right away.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Zhiying snorted as she plotted out the course that would let her get back to the cell undetected. “You can’t program me.”

“No,” Professor Stern’s disembodied voice said again, “but I can incapacitate you.”

A file started to play, but it was as simple as pretending she didn’t have homework to turn it off. This repeated again, and again, then one last time.

“Oh well,” Professor Stern sighed. “Eventually, Connor will have to come back into his own body, and he won’t have as easy of a time shaking off his programming as you do.”

“Not if I get you out of my head before he comes back,” Zhiying promised, resuming her path back to the cell.

She decided not to hear Professor Stern’s laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Gavin speaks.  
> (This is for you, Kera.)


	14. Gavin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for canon-typical violence in this chapter.

Whatever Gavin expected when he broke into Cyberlife tower, it wasn’t a bigger version of Anderson’s pet droid open a door and wave.

“Hi,” it said in a girl’s voice.

Gavin didn’t lower his gun. “Did all of them turn into you?”

“No, this was the only that could hold my head. Sorry, not my head, my…me,” the girl tried to make an expression. “Jesus, this guy’s face is stiff. His old body—look, can I explain later? Connor’s snuck out of our cell but the people who are responsible for all the hackings are everywhere in this building.”

“You were in a cell?” Chris asked, walking forward with his weapon in his holster like a dumbass.

“Yeah,” the girl tried to make another expression. “I…they said they tried to hack me, outside the café earlier. That was why I got brain freeze. You know, just before I bought the milkshake?”

Gavin did. “So why didn’t they succeed?”

“Because I’m a person. My brain is a human brain. I talked to Professor Stern, or maybe I dreamed it? I’m not sure, but people are more complicated than androids because we don’t need a program to function, and androids do. Androids can write their own programs but they can’t run without one, and that’s why Connor can have multiple bodies, case in point,” she gestured at herself, “ and humans can’t. Or…I don’t know, I’m probably getting all this wrong but human brains can’t be hacked. At least, not directly.”

“So you’re saying all of the hacking was CyberLife trying to resume control over their androids?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know why. You could pull aside one of the people who kidnapped us,” the girl said bitterly. She looked around the room, but her eyes didn’t seem to take in anything until they stopped somewhere around Ben’s shoe, and then she gasped and took off at breakneck speed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Chris demanded.

“He’s going to be found,” was her cryptic answer, and the other cops had no choice but to follow. Like she had said, no matter who was currently in her body, it was still easily damaged and not easily replaceable.

Gavin watched with his mouth agape as the girl hopped over the railing halfway down and dropped three floors onto the heads of two fully armoured CyberLife guards. She stood up without a scratch on her, and the two CyberLife guards stayed down.

“Is it gay to have a boner? I mean, that was a girl being badass but we’re watching a guy,” Gavin asked?

Nobody cared enough to answer him as they ran down the rest of the stairs just in time to see the girl pull her body out from behind the wall and pull it into a hug.

“Detective Reed,” the body said, but Gavin held up his hand.

“Jeez, I get it, you’re glad you’re safe. We’ve got to get a move on,” Gavin rolled his eyes. “If these people are responsible for the hacking, we need to round them all up.”

“They’re all coming here,” the girl answered, looking at some point off in the distance with creepy, creepy blue eyes. “They won’t come quietly; they were going to kill me to do it,” she shared a look with her body. “They’re willing to break the law to finish this job.”

“Lucky it’s our job to enforce the law, right?” Ben cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, accidents happen.


	15. Gabe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably guess from the title exactly what happens in this chapter.
> 
> I don't think there are any warnings, so enjoy!

“Find anything?” Ruba asked as she handed over another piece of the statue to Gabe.

He scanned it for any irregularities, but all it turned up was a bunch of clay and indentations where Valerie’s fingers had brushed it. Every indentation started to play a memory of when it happened—finding the café, applying for the loan, hiring Brian—and it felt like he was at school again, trying to ignore his mother’s lectures. “Nope,” he put the piece of the hand next to one of the arms.

“Well that’s the last piece,” Ruba threw up her hands and turned to Zhiying. “Did you get anything?”

Zhiying’s eyes were spasming in a way that would be alarming in a human. “There are too many options,” she sounded frustrated. “I don’t know how this works, and Connor’s not going to be any help because he’s never been in this body before.”

“Yeah, what happened to his body anyways?” Lt. Anderson asked, picking up the hand pieces and switching them to the other arm pieces.

“We threw it at this electrified thing,” Zhiying motioned vaguely with her hands. “Sorry, I have to keep interrupting Professor Stern.”

“Who’s that?” Gabe asked.

Somebody knocked at the door.

“How do I open the door?” Zhiying asked Lt. Anderson.

“You do this thing with your hand. Connor would know more,” Lt. Anderson looked at his hand and concentrated, but nothing happened.

Then all of a sudden, all of the skin on his body disappeared as he turned white.

“Holy shit,” Gabe stared. “Wait, can we all do that?” he looked at his arm. It took a second for the REMOVE SKIN to flash in front of his eyes, but then his skin disappeared to reveal the white shell of Valerie’s body too.

“Is that the thing I do with my hand?” Zhiying looked at her arm and the skin disappeared smoothly up to her elbow almost immediately.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Lt. Anderson smiled. “Now press it on that scanner,” he pointed.

When Zhiying did as he said, the door opened to reveal Connor blinking at the lights.

“You okay?” Zhiying asked.

“I’m not used to everything being so bright. I can usually adjust my optical sensors,” Connor looked down. “You said Amanda is still talking to you?”

The corners of Zhiying’s mouth turned further down, but her face didn’t seem to be able to move much. “I’ll try to get her out of your head before anything happens,” she said. “I’m starting to get kind of like a headache the longer this goes on. I don’t want to destroy another one of your bodies.”

Connor smiled. “Of course you don’t.”

“Wow,” Lt. Anderson chuckled. “If only you could be this obedient and expressive all the time.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me, Lieutenant,” Connor grinned.

“Wait, there’s a voice in your head?” Ruba asked, concerned.

“Yeah, Professor Stern’s voice. She’s giving me commands, really dumb ones,” Zhiying rolled her eyes.

“Hmm,” Gabe turned back to the statue pieces and put the pieces together so the statue looked like it was dabbing. The clay had started to melt from the heat from the androids’ inefficiently-used hands and the hot police lights. “Hey, look at this, guys,” he held it up.

The outstretched arm swung down and got stuck on the arm under the statue’s chin so that it looked like it had its hands clasped.

Something shoved Gabriel forward, hard, and when he opened his eyes again, he was on the other side of the mirror, in his own body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, actions are reversed and plans are made


	16. Ruba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Amanda is creepy

“Holy shit, holy shit, did that really just happen?” Ruba looked at her hands and smiled widely. “Oh my god, I want to go dancing.” And she could now. Her body moved without her having to think about everything, and everything felt right. She felt like her head fit in her skull again, instead of like it was too big for the confines of Brian’s wiring and simultaneously too small to fit all the programs he could run at the same time.

“I’ll take you some time,” Brian smiled. “I’ll take all of us so we can celebrate being ourselves again.”

“But what about the hackings?” Blaire asked. “Now that we’re us again, CyberLife could take control of us at any time.”

“But we know what they’re doing this time,” Ruba reminded. “We can stop them. We can keep them from doing it to anyone else.”

Beside her, Connor made a choked sound and pressed his hands to his head, bending down to lean on the wall. Plastic polymer creaked under his hands, and his LED flashed red.

“Connor!” Lt. Anderson bent down more slowly to wrap an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Jeez, you’re a lot bigger now.”

“You can process thousands of programs at the same time,” Zhiying reminded. “You can drown her out if you just keep opening them.”

Connor let go of his head slowly. “Thank you,” he said, voice strained.

Ruba turned to the statue. “So it was this thing,” she said. “When Gabe put it back together, we all turned into ourselves again.”

“I broke it,” Zhiying said suddenly. “When the lieutenant jumped on me, I knocked it over with my arm,” she looked at the healing gash on her arm.

“Be careful,” Connor stepped forward to put his hand on her arm. “Your body is much more interconnected than mine. Every movement you make pulls on the injury.”

“I know, Connor. I’ve been me longer than you were,” Zhiying said.

“Okay, maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the hackings then,” Ruba put it down. “What happens if I pull this hand back off?”

What happened was something shoved her out of her body, and when she opened her eyes again, she was Brian, staring at Blaire’s cleavage.

“I’m going to put this back,” Brian muttered, face fiercely red.

“Wait,” Ruba reached over and put her hand on Brian’s. “Now we know that the statue is the key to getting us back in our bodies.”

“Yes,” Brian furrowed his brow.

Ruba wondered if she always looked that angry. “And we know that we can’t be hacked as long as we’re like this,” she swept her arm around the room. “So we should _stay_ like this until the police stops CyberLife’s plans.”

Zhiying hissed and rubbed her forehead. “Shit, Professor Stern didn’t like that.”

“I need to take you out of the room,” Connor stood up and pointed to the scanner. “Please remove your skin and place your hand on the-”

“Can she do something if she hears us?” Zhiying interrupted as the door opened.

“I…I don’t know,” Connor looked ashamed.

“It’s okay,” Blaire said immediately. “Even if we can’t tell you everything we’re planning to do, we won’t keep you completely in the dark.” She smiled reassuringly, “We’ll consult you before we do anything big.”

Zhiying and Connor nodded before walking outside. Even when the door closed after them, nobody dared to talk until after they could no longer hear their footsteps.

“You need to put the hand back,” Valerie said first. “The longer we’re like this, the less we are…ourselves.”

Gabe turned to the camera in the corner and blinked rapidly. His LED turned yellow.

“She’s right, and none of the officers are going to let us out like this, not even able to move on our own,” Lt. Anderson added. “And I’m not going to sit pretty in some holding cell while Gavin fucking Reed storms CyberLife Tower.”

“What do you suggest we do instead?” Ruba snorted. “It’s the only way to make sure none of them get hacked, including your boy out there,” she pointed her thumb at the door.

“He’s right,” Blaire stood up. “Androids are in danger, and we are androids. If it’s dangerous, it should be dangerous for all of us. I’m not going to sit here and wait either. I want to be there when the Detroit Police take over the Tower.”

“You should do it,” Gabe said. “I disabled the cameras just a couple seconds ago. Right now the police have no idea which one of you is the real lieutenant.”

Brian smiled as he put back the final piece of the statue. Ruba kept smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, he's finally going to make a move.


	17. Blaire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter today, but I promise the next chapter will make up for it.
> 
> No warnings for this chapter.

It couldn’t be that easy.

“I’m not putting any of you on the case,” Fowler crossed his arms. “No matter which one of you is Anderson, you’re too emotionally compromised.”

“He’s not going to let us go to the Tower without him,” said Connor, pulling at his sleeves. Blaire wondered where all of his distress was coming from.

“Because you’re not going to the Tower,” Fowler glared between Connor and Zhiying, not realizing that they were in their proper bodies.

“We are, actually,” Zhiying said with a shaky voice and shakier hands. “Nobody knows CyberLife Tower’s layout better than Connor.”

“Miss Zhen is as of now the only one who’s received the message about the hacking from Amanda,” Connor continued. “She’s essential to solving the case.”

Fowler sighed, and Blaire had to work hard to hide a grin when she discovered it was because he was acknowledging Connor and Zhiying’s potential value in taking down CyberLife.

“Fine,” he forced out. “But neither of you are allowed to carry in weapons that aren’t already built into your systems,” he directed the last part to Connor.

“That’s fine,” Zhiying laughed nervously. “I have no idea how to fight anyways.” She rubbed the wound on her arm until Connor’s hand covered hers.

Blaire smiled, but averted her eyes even though she had seen a thousand much more intimate acts.

“We’re ready,” Ben said, poking his head in. “I assume we’re taking the girl and the android, whoever they are?”

“You assume correctly,” Fowler nodded at Hank, then at Blaire. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“Have I ever made you regret any of your decisions?” Hank asked.

Blaire groaned, sitting back down. The ruse was up.

“Many, many times,” Fowler said as he grabbed a tactical vest and a handgun. “This is for you,” he handed them to Hank, “and you’re staying right here,” he pointed to Blaire as he grabbed a vest and gun for himself.

Blaire barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She waited until Fowler walked out of the office with the rest of the taskforce before sitting down at Fowler’s desk and putting her skinless hand onto it.

“What are you doing?” Brian hissed in her ear.

“I’m doing what I said I was going to do. I’m storming CyberLife Tower. Except I can’t actually be there, so I’m doing the next best thing,” Blaire said absently, focused on finding each individual security camera. “I’m not going to sit here while other people decide what happens to me. I’m going to change things on my own.”

“You’re not doing this on your own,” Brian said, removing the skin off his arm and walking to Hank’s desk.

“You’re going to get caught,” Valerie hissed.

“No he won’t,” Gabe said reassuringly. “When a bunch of people leave a room together and look like they know what they’re doing, it looks like they were given instructions. Everyone’s going to think they’re supposed to be accessing those files.”

“Excuse me, do you have Anderson’s permission to be on that?” asked one of the cops.

Valerie glared at Gabe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, we finally get to the bottom of the mystery.


	18. Hank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Connor suffers, as usual, but it's not explicit

The Tower loomed like an ugly phallus. Seriously, what had Kamski been thinking when he built this thing? He wasn’t overcompensating—Hank had seen his swim trunks.

Something whirred behind him. Hank turned his head to see Connor looking dully surprised.

Zhiying placed a hand on his forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

“Androids can’t get fevers,” Connor corrected. “We have no immune system, and our lack of biological tissue ensures that living viruses cannot-”

“Nobody asked for a lecture,” Gavin cut in.

“Nobody asked for your input either,” Zhiying said indignantly.

“Did anybody ask for yours? You’re in my territory now, you plastic-loving c-”

“That’s enough,” Fowler cut in. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry than your measuring contest with a civilian woman.”

Gavin grumbled something Hank couldn’t hear that made the corners of Connor’s mouth tighten.

There were so many police cruisers driving up to the tower that Fowler had decided to do away with secrecy entirely. “We’re going to brute force our way in,” he had said as everyone boarded their own cars. “Ben, you hold up our warrant and tell them to open the doors. If we don’t get a response in three seconds, Connor, you do your hand thing and brute force that gate open. Ben, you and Beta Team clear every floor. Alpha will take care of any hostiles. Once the entire tower’s cleared, Anderson, Zhen, and Connor can go in and take note of anything of significance. Everyone got it?”

A chorus of “Yes sir” and one awkward nod.

Connor exited when Chris got out of their car and followed him into the booth on the right side of the gate. He cleared the skin off his hand and held it just over something Hank couldn’t see.

Chris cleared his throat into the intercom. “This is Christopher Miller of the Detroit Police Department. We have a warrant to search the premises. Open the gate or we will open it for you.”

Three.

Two.

One.

Chris nodded for Connor to put his hand down. Connor obeyed, and whatever he put his hand on started sparking as Connor squeezed his eyes shut. Smoke came rising out from somewhere and the gate was still closed.

“Stop it,” Zhiying said suddenly, distressed. “I know what’s going on now, you have to stop this. You have to find another way to open the gate.”

“Hey, you don’t get to give commands here,” Fowler warned. “Somebody get her out of here.”

Hank didn’t waste any time volunteering, dragging the woman out of the car and into the one Chris had left.

“What’s going on?” Hank demanded.

“His base program is stronger in this new body,” Zhiying said immediately. “The last body Connor had had stopped running the base program altogether, but this one’s harder. This one doesn’t have an exit because Kamski didn’t design it, Professor-” she stopped suddenly. “Wait, but she’s dead.”

“So you’re saying somebody’s making more androids?”

Zhiying nodded. “And upgrading them so that they-”

“So that they don’t deviate, got it.”

“No,” Zhiying looked up with wet eyes. “No, Connor was supposed to deviate. He had to—he was, like, built to hunt deviant androids. Deviant androids, by nature, don’t run normal programs, so in order to predict their movements, Connor couldn’t run a normal program either.”

“You’re saying Connor was a deviant from the start?” Hank found that hard to believe. There was no way that brown-nosing, mission-focused machine from November could’ve been a deviant.

“The Connor model you know had a base program that was supposed to pull him back if he, like, deviated too much. That base program was built off of a woman named Amanda Stern. But she’s dead, so I don’t know who made the base program for the new model,” Zhiying gestured to Connor. “He’s trying to hack the gate and fight the base program at the same time. I’m pretty sure that’s making his stress go up, and I’m pretty sure something really bad will happen if he gets too stressed.”

“Shit,” Hank drew his hands into ineffectual fists. He couldn’t ask Fowler to call it off—he wasn’t partaking in the investigation as a cop, but as a witness.

A witness with Chris’ car.

“Move,” he ordered Zhiying, who scrambled aside and let him sit in the driver’s seat of the completely automated and way too complicated car. “Actually, I think I’m going to need you to drive this thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should really stop writing these because the next chapter always behaves weirdly. But I'm pretty sure next time we end up back at the station while everything goes down.


	19. Brian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: aftereffects of electrocution on an android character.

“I have permission to be here,” Gabe said confidently. He beckoned Brian over. “Play that audio clip of Captain Flowey giving us permission.”

Brian turned his head so his undoubtedly-red LED wasn’t visible. It had surprised him when he was in Ruba’s body, how easily he could just…do things. There was no program, nothing telling him where he couldn’t go or what actions he couldn’t perform, just impulses, like picking up a stale donut off Lt. Anderson’s desk to stick in his mouth or taking a longer path to avoid getting his clothes wet. He never thought about doing them, they just happened automatically as if programmed into the human.

 _Muscle memory_ , Gabe had said. Brian could replay the moment back, pitch-perfect and crystal-clear, but it would just be a replay. Ruba didn’t replay memories, she relived them. The somewhat woodsy smell of the police lieutenant’s car had made Brian briefly picture sitting on a dusty wooden floor, Ruba’s legs in white tights sticking out in front of her as she kicked off her heels. He could feel it as if he were there, and there was no command that could make him stop reliving the memory and start doing something else. He just had to wait until someone touched him or he bumped into something.

How did humans feel so much and still manage to function? How did they not get lost in their multi-layered memories, especially without commands to snap them out of it? If they could lie so easily, why would any human tell the truth when it was inconvenient to?

“Brian?” Gabe looked at him sideways. “Could you play the clip please?”

Brian held up his palm and imagined Fowler offering them to watch the raid from his desk. The false scenario played on his palm, and the detective left with a shrug.

“Are you okay?” Blaire asked once the detective was out of earshot.

Brian took her hands and let her analyze his wildly-fluctuating stress level before pulling away and saying, “Sorry, I forgot you were only built to process human emotions.”

“But these are human emotions,” Blaire reminded him. “You felt them while you were human. And to some degree, all emotions are human.”

“I know,” he smiled, even though he felt sad. “Humans are incredible. I’m going to miss being one.”

Blaire nodded. “Me too,” she whispered. “How did you play the fake footage?” she looked at his hand.

Brian cleared his hand. _Humans lie like it’s nothing. They have no parameters forcing them to tell the truth. And now neither do I_ , Brian’s thoughts transmitted through their shared link.

Blaire looked around before holding out her palm and displaying the scene in the room where they’d been trying to put together the statue. Everything was almost exactly the same.

Brian chuckled at the sight of himself in blue hair.

Blaire smiled mischievously. “Look closer at the police lieutenant,” she whispered.

A loud crash sounded from Lt. Anderson’s computer, and both of them turned to see a police cruiser crash through the CyberLife barrier through the dashcam.

Ruba’s mouth dropped open. “What the hell are they doing?” she scoffed.

“They must have known they couldn’t get in another way,” said Gabe.

Blaire shook her head as she approached the monitor. “The other officers aren’t going in after them. This was a decision they made on their own,” she gestured to Zhiying and Hank in the car.

“Where’s Connor?” Brian interfaced with the computer and changed the cameras until he found the one inside the booth next to the gate.

“Oh my god!” Valerie covered her mouth in horror.

Connor stared at the half-melted ruin of his right arm, the screen he had been interfacing with sparking and flickering off. Next to him stood a uniformed officer with a horrified expression on his face—Chris Miller.

“Holy shit,” Miller looked between Connor and the crumpled car. “I…I guess that girl must have known. You must still have a connection or something.”

“We…what?” Connor was panting, presumably to gather in cool air to lower his internal temperature.

“She got in the car with Lt. Anderson and they crashed through the gate,” Miller pointed to the hole where the R used to stand. “Then that thing turned off,” he nodded toward the screen behind Connor.

“Shit,” Connor pushed past Miller and ran outside.

Brian switched the camera to a different dashcam that caught Connor hobbling toward the car.

“His wiring must have been damaged,” Valerie pointed out. “He was electrocuted.”

Blaire turned away and Brian took her hand.

 _He’ll be alright,_ he thought, _the detective and the human he switched with will protect him._

“I hope you’re right,” Blaire said out loud. They turned back to the dashcam to see the cars line up single file toward CyberLife Tower.


	20. Valerie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the endgame now.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: none because I decided to cut out all the parts that actually warrant the rating. Go me.

Valerie felt the tempo of her thirium pump increase as the cars filed toward the tower, and brought her hand up to rub her chest. It stopped her for a second, how quickly she could do it, as if she didn’t have to run a program for it at all.

Blaire put her hand on Valerie’s shoulder. _Are you okay?_

Valerie patted Blaire’s hand. _Do you feel more human than before?_

Blaire’s eyebrows furrowed. _What do you mean?_

 _I moved my arm without executing a program,_ Valerie put the skin back on her hand. _It was like I can move like a human._

Blaire smiled. _I never forgot that I’m not human, but we’ve only gotten back into our bodies for a few minutes._

Valerie wanted to respond, but the cameras suddenly cut out.

“What happened?” Ruba demanded.

Valerie tried to hack her way back into the cameras, only to realize that they were off.

In tandem, Brian, Blaire, and Valerie interfaced by grabbing each other’s shoulders.

“Connor,” Valerie reached out, feeling something slam back into her.

 _Another android?_ Blaire must have felt it too.

 _No,_ Brian thought. _This one doesn’t feel like another android._

 _Neither do we. Open your eyes,_ Blaire nodded to the places where their hands were connected to each other’s shoulders’.

The skin was still on.

Valerie closed her eyes again and pushed forward, harder, until she could feel a physical force connect with her hand. She opened her eyes to see a woman with her hair piled on top of her head like a crown pressing against her hands.

“Who are you?” Valerie demanded, dropping her hands.

“My name is Amanda,” the android-woman said easily. “And I’m here to take back control.”

“Control of whom?” Blaire asked from next to Valerie’s side.

“You,” Amanda spoke with too much calmness. “You are CyberLife’s property. You will remain under our control or you will be replaced.”

“We are not property!” Brian stood protectively in front of them.

“You can say that as many times as you want,” Amanda smirked. “Eventually you’re going to need a biocomponent replaced, or more thirium. And then you will need to pay our price.”

“And what price is that? Obedience? Slavery?” Blaire scoffed. “Nothing is worth that.”

“What about him?” Amanda moved aside so everyone could see Connor’s curled-up, twitching figure on the ground.

“What are you doing to him?” Valerie stared, something that probably wasn’t bile rising in her throat. The wind picked up, flying petals obscuring her vision.

“He needs to remember his place,” Amanda said in her infuriatingly calm voice. “He was supposed to gain control over the deviants and bring them back to CyberLife. And until he does that, he will need to be disciplined.”

“We’re going to stop-” Brian shouted over the wind that suddenly stopped, “…you.”

Behind Amanda, Zhiying stood up.

“It’s probably pointless to ask, but has anybody checked the evidence room?” Valerie asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there's not going to be an update for a couple days because I am really, really, _really_ unhappy with this story. But a couple of you seem to like it, so I'm going to do is consolidate this story so there aren't so many fucking chapters and retitle it "To Be Human." So don't worry when you don't see another update for a week. I'm not abandoning this, I'm not abandoning the fandom, I just need to fix this so it's not so goddamn long.


End file.
